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I recently saw a kite tricking video from youtube and the kite always landing on its wing tip(left or right) between a series of tricks like rolling susan, axel cascade, comete, lazy susan etc. I never seen anyone doing so many tip stands between tricks. It is very impressive to look at. Is it difficult to do in real life ? Thanks in advance for your valuable inputs.

Best thing is to practice holding the kite on a tip first so you get the feel for how it feels and how to balance the kite. This can be fun to work on just on its own - you can start with short lines or even the leaders to get a feel for it. Lean the kite back quite a bit and its easy to keep it balanced.

From there you can work landing the kite in that orientation. It's easier to do from a 45 degree angle to start with. Then, straight down.

Good luck. I was going to try to describe how to do the actual input, but I can't quit decide how to explain it - maybe someone else can. Best I can think it to call it a half-axel-like input of maybe more of a snap-stall where you time it to have the kite leaning back with the stabbing leg forward to hit the ground, then maintain balancing it.

Learning to land on the tips can be hazardous to your lower leading edges and nocks until you get the timing right. Here are a couple of suggestions.

1. Practice balancing the kite on tips, as suggested above.

2. Practice the coin toss.

3. Fly with something on the horizon behind the kite and use that as a reference point to simulate the ground. When you can consistently stop your wing tip on that imaginary point you are ready for landing on the real ground.

4. Try landing on real ground during low winds at first.

5. Fly across the window slowly, just a foot or two off of the ground, with one wingtip pointing directly at the ground, then step forward quickly until the tip touches the ground.

6. Try step 5 coming down at a slight angle and slowly increase the angle as your timing improves.

With practice you will be able to increase the accuracy and speed at which you can land this way by doing what is essentially a modified snap stall. That is a stall with one wing tip pointing directly at the ground vice both wingtips parallel to the ground. You can make the final touchdown by leaning forward, extending your arms forward or stepping forward as the tip gets close to the ground.

Tip Stab - landing the kite on one wingtip.Tip Stand - holding the kite on one wingtip.

What to say ? It's landing the kite at an angle then keeping it there. If you can do a two point landing, just turn the kite 90° (or turn it 90° less) before you hit the ground. Then move onto the Black Hole to show the kite and the ground just how much you hate them both.

Black Hole ... very interesting. Is there a video available regarding this trick ?

The only two related videos I can find are:-

misnamed - it's from horizontal flight which just demonstrates that people have been getting trick names wrong for years

is a variation called a Suzuki - dummy one way, flick back the other to stab

If you really want to do the Black Hole you'll be wanting a flatter kite than is commonplace today. If I'm feeling brave I might give the Element a shot at it but spar breakages are~were always hovering in the air with this trick so... perhaps not.

If you really want to do the Black Hole you'll be wanting a flatter kite than is commonplace today. If I'm feeling brave I might give the Element a shot at it but spar breakages are~were always hovering in the air with this trick so... perhaps not.

Miguel Rodriguez and Brian Champie flying the Cal Wasp. No more need be said on the subject of Black Holes

I want to point out the bolded portion above. Simply "landing on a wingtip" is not a tip stab. I've seen plenty of people stall just above the ground and float down onto a wingtip and call that a "tip stab". It's not. The wingtip has to be driven into the ground quickly and with considerable force.

Seriously, I doubt there are very many modern kites that would perform it correctly. It's a trick that exploits the characteristics of a fast, flat-sailed kite, and there aren't very many of those left in general circulation. In fact, a good old-fashioned powerful tip stab is not really a strong suit of today's deeper-sailed polyvalent kites. This was evident at a lot of our Tricks Parties - competitors were perfectly comfortable when asked to perform a Jacobs Ladder or Rolling Cascade as a compulsory, but sweated bullets when assigned a "simple" tip stab.

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